Chapter 62

Chapter 62

“Cheongsung……?”
“Yes. I am Ye Gong.”
The man was a mystery. He had come from a school called the Qingcheng Sect of the Middle Kingdom, and his arms were bluer than the northern winds of the North Sea, and he had aroused wariness.
As if to prove himself, he would divine the future and stand by the side of the Korean and Japanese traders.
As if that was his role.
As he listened with suspicion, Han Il-sang was stunned to hear what Ye Gon had to say.
As if he had seen through it, he proved that his father was not his father, and he was able to crush his brother’s ambition to interfere with his work at every turn. When Han Yu-san, who had been calling him brother, found and secretly ate the bamboo ginseng, he realized that he was trying to unseat him.
Han Yuxiang felt that the presence of Ye Gong next to him was like a match made in heaven.
If only he hadn’t shown up at the right time.
He was dizzy. He would have been reduced to a scarecrow, imprisoned in an ice cage or driven out of the North Sea, as Ye Gon had said.
“Master Yogon.”
“Speak, my lord.”
“Thank you. If it weren’t for the Taoist, I would have been killed long ago.”
“Of course. It’s only natural to spread the Tao and help those in need.”
“……Thank you very much, and I will grant you whatever you wish.”
“I just want you to find the bamboo ginseng and make a great success of it, so that I can fulfill my dignity as an ice archer.”
Han Han shook his head at Ye Gong’s words. As long as he could master the ice ball, it would be a small matter to regain his former status. The previous court lord, Han Tae-moon, had also said that the reason why the Ice Palace had entered an era of glory was because he had perfected his own ice ball.
“That’s right, I’ll find the bamboo ginseng and consolidate my position as palace lord as soon as possible. If I can do that, I’m sure I’ll be able to fulfill the wishes of the Daoist in no time.”
“I’m glad to hear that. When King Taesang hears, he will dance for joy.”
The smile on Master Yeogon’s face made Han Han feel as if he had won a thousand horses.
That’s right.
Even if he had no power, he would prove that he was a master of ice archery with Ye Gong in front of him.
So every day, he turned over the ice bow and searched the ice den. Throughout the night, he instructed the unmanned binggung to search for the bamboo ginseng, but it was nowhere to be found. As Han Han-san grew impatient, Ye Gong came to his side and spoke.
“Why don’t we call out all the herbalists and herbalists in the North Sea to help with the labor, and if we pay them a decent wage, the king’s reputation will be enhanced, and we will find what we are looking for.”
Thinking that this was indeed Yogon, he took all of the Simmani and herbalists and put them to work on the iceberg inside the ice cave.
A year passed with no news.
“……The Warlord would know.”
“The Warlord?”
Han Il-sang asked, and Yeo-gon nodded.
“Who else but a warlord could know the place where the North Sea’s energies are gathered and concentrated?”
“I’ll have to ask.”
“If it is not enough to ask, then I must condemn my son before your eyes. He may be the brother of the king, but he is not a traitor.”
The completion of the ice ball was the way to prove Han Il-sang’s worthiness, so when Yeogon gently scratched his itch, Han Il-sang smiled with satisfaction.
So Han Il-sang said.
“Han Yu-san, we should take him away and torture him. If we do, even the whole palace won’t be able to keep their mouths shut.”
He took Han Yu-sang, whom he believed to be his brother, and tortured him in front of Han Tae-moon. He wanted to know the location of the ginseng.
But the former palace lord Han Tae-moon refused to tell him the location.
“Deputy palace lord……! No, Iyi, please listen to me. You’re being misled by the words of that wicked man. He’s encouraging you to look for the bamboo ginseng! He must have something else up his sleeve!”
You’re talking nonsense,
Han Il-sang, who laughed in disbelief, shook his head in disbelief.
“You can talk nonsense all you want, but it won’t make a difference. You still don’t know the world.”
Han Tae-moon shook his head in despair as he looked at Han Il-sang’s tongue.
Just like that, the day at the Beihai Ice Palace ended in a dark cloud.
* * *
“Death penalty.”
“What is it?”
“I’m glad I came to the North Sea.”
Sang-taek looked at his arms with a satisfied smile. His arms were turning blue, and the deeper the color, the more satisfied he was with his accomplishments.
“How did you know?”
“I was lucky,” he said, ”to find out about the iceweed from the North Sea.”
It was close to a stroke of luck. The realization that something in the North Sea could enhance their own attainment of the Martial Arts.
As a taoist order, the Qing Sheng School receives a kind of payment from the top and the kingdom that is directly or indirectly within their realm, and the Qing Sheng School masters themselves go down and resolve minor quarrels by covering them up.
In the meantime, Ye Gong, who had caused an incident and tarnished the sect’s name, was treated as an outsider. Moreover, because he had fallen out of favor with Zhang Wenyin, he had been imprisoned in a closed building for a long time.
“How is it fair to keep me, the supreme beast of Qingcheng, locked up here!”
However, when he finally escapes, he finds himself in a land that he stumbles upon. A frozen grass that only grows in the North Sea.
Sensing that it contained extreme energy, as well as a poisonous aura that matched Qing Shui’s own, Ye Gong moved quickly, taking only his priest, Shang Tak, with him.
“You will be the first person to make a grand entrance since Qing Sheng was founded.”
“Reduction, death penalty!”
Ye Gong looked at his arms, which were no longer blue and gray, with satisfaction, and realized that he had reached the eleventh rank of Martial Mastery. He said that he had already accomplished a great feat, and then turned to Shang-taek.
“You should continue to cultivate with the frozen herbs that you’ve covered with the merchandise, and you’ll be able to reach the eighth star in no time.”
“Thank you, sir!”
I have mastered one of the forbidden martial arts in Qingcheng.
One of the most terrible martial arts of the Qing Sheng Sect, a technique that could crush the heart, penetrate the intestines, and rupture them.
Master Zhang Wenyin of the Qing Sheng Sect had declared it absolutely forbidden, declaring it a demonic kung fu, and had strictly forbidden it. Nevertheless, Ye Gong defied the master’s orders and learned it.
“I’ll prove to you,” he said, ”that with this martial art, Qing Sheng is not just talking!”
To prove it, he challenged a swordsman from the Southern Palace, who was considered a master of his time, to a duel. Of course, he barely escaped and survived. The poisonous energy of his cultivated sword had infiltrated his body.
How could he not be greedy when his eight-star achievement was enough to divide the Southern Palace’s best by a hundred to one?
“If we don’t complete it in the Beihai, we won’t be able to return to Zhongyuan.”
The master of the Qing Sheng Sect, Zhang Wenyin, realizing his responsibility, organized a chase party to pursue the master of the forbidden martial art, Ye Gong, and his priest, Shang Tak. He also put a reward on the heads of Ye Gong and Shang Tak for the entire Zhongyuan army, so they, rats in poison, crossed to the North Sea and devoted their time to the mastery of the forbidden martial art.
“……It will be great.”
“So.”
Ye Gong’s eyes flashed.
“Ten thousand years of life.”
“……death penalty?”
“We have to take the Ten Thousand Year Ginseng.”
“What?”
He was a martial artist with enough time to cultivate the Frozen Herb, so why would he be greedy for the Ten Thousand Ginseng?
“You’re stupid. You still don’t understand that this is directly related to extreme energy. The stronger the extreme energy, the greater the power. If the Extreme Qi is continuously supplied even after reaching greatness, the Zhongyuan will crumble before the poisonous energy and the Extreme Qi.”
Ye Gong was confident.
He was confident of his accomplishments and the strength he would gain from consuming bamboo ginseng.
If he ever met the swordsman from the Southern Palace again, the man who had defeated him so many times and driven him to this place, he would defeat him.
To do that, he had to find the bamboo ginseng.
I must.
* * *
“Off.”
A groan escaped the mouth of the man trapped in the ice cage, an icy prison built to hold the most heinous of criminals in the extreme cold.
Han Tae-moon, the former owner of the North Sea Ice Palace, the former palace lord, and now the former palace lord, summoned every ounce of his internal energy he could muster to loosen his frozen muscles and keep warm.
His arms and legs still wouldn’t move.
It must be these cuffs holding his limbs.
Han Tae-moon shook his head and turned away, knowing the weight and thickness of the iron that had made him unable to move.
There was a man lying there in a worse state than himself.
It was none other than his own son, Han Yu-sang. He was still in a daze from the torture he had endured. Han Tae-moon bit his lip as he looked at Han Yu-sang’s blue lips and the bags under his eyes. It seemed that he had consumed more than the normal amount of freezing herbs.
Perhaps after a little more time, Han Yu-san would no longer be able to function as a person. He bit his lower lip and lamented. It was an untenable situation.
He couldn’t see any hope before he had to accept the reality. Who else would come to this peculiar terrain, this far out in the North Sea?
Trapped in the name of Saez.
I regretted my pride, which had never been challenged anywhere else.
If I could go back, I would never live like a frog in a well again.
And so he lamented and regretted and self-helped.
At the moment when I thought there was no hope.
“……I wonder if it was a rebellion.”
“It seems so.”
I heard their voices as if it were a dream. Here in the ice cave.
At first, Han Tae-moon thought he was hallucinating, but then he gave a self-help smile.
“This must be the old monster they were talking about.”
“……It’s frivolous to say.”
“I only said what I meant.”
The voice from the distance could not be called a hallucination. Han Tae-moon barely lifted his head to look at the shadows outside the cage.
“……That’s terrible.”
“I don’t think the Monkfish did this to the bandits.”
“The North is a tough place, too.”
Han Tae-moon’s eyes met the tongue-lashing pair.
For the first time, there was life in his cloudy eyes, which were filled with despair.
Then, not wanting to let go of a glimmer of hope, Han Tae-moon spoke up desperately.
“Mo, run for cover. I’ll come back later.”
“……later.”
“Cool, cool, cool. No, no, not if that Daoist comes. He must be avoided!”
“The Taoist? You mean there’s a Taoist here?”
The young man looked at Han Taiwen in surprise.
“It’s called the Qing Sheng Sect of the …… Zhongyuan Clan.”
“Qing Sheng? You mean the Qing Sheng from the old Pile Pavilion? Why is that name?”
The young man’s eyebrows furrowed in disbelief, but Han Tae-moon insisted that it was true. After describing his appearance and the color of his robes, the middle-aged man standing next to the young man slowly spoke up in response.
“I just want to ask you one question: what were the Taoist’s two arms like?”
“They were …… dead, dead, dead. There was not a drop of blood in them.”
The middle-aged man’s face hardened at that.
“It’s …….”
I opened my mouth as if I knew something.
A bastard.
The young man questioned, and the middle-aged man spoke up.
“Your teacher and first elder, Ye Gong of Qingcheng, the one who attacked the Southern Palace and infiltrated the poisonous qi.”
A terrible martial artist whose withered arms proved he was the worst of the bunch, banned by the Zheng Sect and dismissed as a martial artist.
“The Greatest Heart.”
He was said to have mastered it. The words were unintelligible to Han Tae-moon, but one thing was certain. The two of them, their eyes blazing with an unearthly, ineffable light, at least had an enemy like himself.